Episode 977: Bored of Education – Thanks to Boards of Education
Air Date: August 12, 2026 | Hosts: Bob Metz and Robert Vaughan
Just Right — broadcasting on WBCQ and Channel 292 shortwave
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this program are those of the participants.
Clip (Get Woke Up, January 10 2022):
I’m just finishing up with my girls' math homework here, giving them a hand, it's all online. I can't make heads or tails of it. They really make things pretty complicated for parents these days.
What's the question?
Divide 128 genders by what supremacy, add three COVID vaccinations, but deduct the non-MRNA ones, anti-mask that after flattening the curve, and then filter two generations of privilege through critical race theory. And how much climate change does that leave you with.
Bob Metz:
Welcome everyone. It is Wednesday, August 12th, 2026. I'm Bob Metz. And I'm Robert Vaughan. And this is Just Right. Broadcasting around the world and online.
Robert Vaughan:
Join us for an hour of discussion that's not right wing. It's just right.
Bob Metz:
It was just a few weeks ago that we featured our commentary on the failure of state education broadcast on July 15. I must confess, I was caught a little off guard by the number of people who contacted us and expressed a genuine interest in and concern with the state of state education.
Among them was our guest today, someone who has something in common with our own Robert Vaughan, who himself this week takes a break from his massive undertaking of upgrading and improving Just Right's website to interview our guest. Dave Annis was a teacher and vice principal over a period of 25 years at the London Board of Education in London, Ontario, Canada. While, as many know, Robert himself was an elected education trustee for that same board. Of course, at present, Robert lives in the province of New Brunswick from where he conducted his interview.
Together, Dave and Robert compared notes on their experiences at the London Board in a conversation that is much longer than our own audio broadcast show, and which is available in its entirety on Just Right's video channels, all accessible from our newly evolving website. Our audio broadcast version of their conversation begins right after our reminder that you can write us at feedback@justrightmedia.org. Hear us on WBCQ and on Channel 292 Shortwave. Follow and like us on your favorite podcast platform, and visit us at justrightmedia.org, where you can access all of our social media links, archive broadcasts, and the support button that makes it easy for you to support the show. Because as always, your financial support is appreciated and is what makes this show possible.
Robert Vaughan:
We're joined by Dave Annis. Dave Annis was a teacher at the London Board of Education, Thames Valley District School Board, London, Ontario, for 25 years. Five years as a vice principal, and he is or was the candidate for the People's Party of Canada in the riding of London Center. Hi, Dave.
Dave Annis:
Good morning.
Robert Vaughan:
Now was that right? Are you still the candidate for the PPC or Candidate of Record?
Dave Annis:
Yes.
Robert Vaughan:
Okay, good. Thank you for putting your name forward.
Dave Annis:
You’re welcome.
Robert Vaughan:
That you're retired as a teacher. I was a school trustee in that board, London Board Thames Valley District School Board, so I think we're on a common ground here as far as fundamentals go. And I know that there was a number of teachers who had taken issue with a lot of the policies of the board and the province. And weren't allowed to say anything for fear of reprisal, both from the board, their employer, or the Ministry of Education, or worst of all, the College of Teachers.
So now that you're retired and you are a free agent now to speak your mind, what is the most burning issue that you had when you were a vice principal or an elementary school teacher that you wanted to tell the people, the public, but were afraid to.
Dave Annis:
Well, there are two really. One was safety and physical safety. The other one is ideology that is just rampant in Ontario schools. And I would say that the vast majority of teachers that I talked to didn't agree with the ideology.
Or they would agree to it a little bit, but not the whole slate. However, they're muzzled. They have the golden handcuffs, so to speak, because it's a well-paying job, good pension, time off, and it is a very hard job. It's a rewarding job, and there are some amazing teachers out there, but just like in every profession, there's some that are amazing, some are good, many that are average, and then there's some that are really bad. So teaching's no different.
Robert Vaughan:
What is the ideology you're talking about?
Dave Annis:
I'm talking about diversity, equity, and inclusion, as well as the parts of it that the indigenous push right now, that is the noble savage idea that these people were immaculate and couldn't do any wrong. As individuals, they're great, just like anyone, any other group would be. But the problem is they're looking at them as groups and they're not looking at them as individuals, and that's what identity politics really comes down to. And well, our common friend Bob Metz would say that that's an oxymoron, that you can't have identity politics. They don't meld together, they're individuals, and you have to look at the individual because you can't tar a whole group with one brush because they're not the same.
Yet our board and our ministry of education in the province is doing that, giving special rights to special groups and creating resentment and the opposite effect of what they're hoping to create.
Robert Vaughan:
Can we just label all of this this ideology as either left or woke? Since 2015, 2010, 2015, we've identified it as woke. But under the huge rubric of left ideology, which the current government, as a matter of fact, all past governments of the province of Ontario have ascribed to, especially under Doug Ford, an extreme socialist, an extreme woke premier, if you want to have my opinion. The name of his party is Progressive Conservative, emphasis on the word progressive. What they want to conserve is progressivism. So that is the ideology. Okay, so we've got to identify that now.
What about the makeup of the teachers in the Thames Valley District School Board? I would imagine that they are pretty much no different demographically, as far as this ideology goes, than the rest of the country. A majority of them would actually be in favor of the ideology of their government and governments, federal and provincial.
A very large minority would be small c, large C conservative, however we want to describe it as being in the opposition to the irrationality of the left-wing politics of their province and country. And we're talking then about many thousands of teachers. I think when I left, we had employed 5,000 teachers or had at least 5,000 employees in that board. So we're talking many, many hundreds, if not a thousand or more teachers who are stifled. Would I be correct in that assumption?
Dave Annis:
Yes, yes, they are muzzled. I used to think that the majority of the young generation that's coming into teaching are left wing. I don't know. Because they're self-censoring. They are afraid to talk out. They are afraid to let your views be known.
For example, when we had our monthly staff meetings, and I was forced to give certain information from the board, and how that would happen is the board would prepare a slideshow and they would send it out to all the school administrators, and we would present it and give the speaking notes, or create our own if we wanted, as long as they follow the main message.
So this one time I had to give a presentation that said that our system is systemically racist, and that therefore we're racist as well.
Robert Vaughan:
Meaning, of course, the white portion of the staff.
Dave Annis:
Yes. And my staff at the time at the school I was at, it's mostly white, and they sat there like this, and arms crossed, faces angry looking, because again, it's the signing of guilt or association by group, collectivism instead of the individual. And so I couched what I said by saying, I'm being required to tell you blah, blah, blah, blah.
And then I double checked with one teacher that I trust that I found out has similar views as I do. I said, So are the staff getting what I mean by I'm required to tell you? And she said, Oh, yes. They all know that you're just saying the party line, but that you yourself don't believe it.
So back to your question. Some after that started coming to me and saying things. For example, I had one staff member after the American election. He came into my office and he whispered that he's happy Trump won because they're now going to close the borders. Just stuff like that. And then I just said out loud, not whispering, I'm happy that Trump won so that he'll close the borders, and I'm not whispering about it. But I'm not going to bring that up in the school unless someone else talks to me first, right? Because that's not my job as a school administrator is to talk politics.
But those little tidbits of information that you give out, they spread. And so the staff at that school came to know where I stood in certain areas. But some would come to me, but others would not.
And as to the idea that the majority are it, I think it really is by a demographic. The older teachers are less likely to embrace this left woke collectivism. It was the older ones because they've been in the profession long enough to see how it has deteriorated in education, but they're not willing to speak up about it. I've heard of other teachers would talk to the ones I would trust, and I would hear, oh, they have the same position as I do, but they wouldn't come to me because I was in a position of authority. So and they're afraid of it getting out.
And then the ultimate, like you said, of going being reported to the College of Teachers, having your teaching license revoked, and on top of that, publicly shamed. Because what happens is the College of Teachers quarterly prints a magazine, and in it they have what's called the blue pages. And if your name's in there, it's because you've been found guilty of some offense, some of it quite serious. We're talking a lot of it is sexual allegations, sexual misconduct, things like that. But also something as simple as not following the school board's diversity, equity, and inclusion practices, right? And then it gives a blurb about it, but only gives one side.
And so it's humiliating. And so people are terrified. They will not come forward.
Clip (Peter St Onge, June 22 2026):
Public schools are imploding in performance and attendance as parents seek alternatives. Bad duda turn their kids into gay democrats who can't read. Fortunately for the teachers' unions, that public schools are built to serve the one area that is growing is budget.
So the background is progressives ran a hundred-year campaign to capture education and hand it to communist teachers' unions. Murray Rothbard actually wrote a book on this takeover called Education Free and Compulsory. The punchline being government schools was never about reading, writing, and arithmetic. It was an intentional strategy to ideologically capture the kids of, in particular, Catholics, who at the time did not see the government as a crusade, they just wanted the government to leave them alone.
Robert Vaughan:
College of Teachers came into being, I believe, in 1997. I was actually on CFBL TV London debating against the creation of that under Dalton McGuinty, I think it was. Although teachers have always been regulated, they had the normal schools. Going back as far as you can count, there was always some sort of oversight either by the ministry or normal schools or individual colleges. But to have this overarching mouthpiece for the left-wing government ideology as called the teachers of college, where you have to pay dues to this guild and do their bidding as another boss or risk either fines or termination, to me is so repulsive that I don't know how anybody can live and work under such restraint. It's not as it is as bad as the unions.
To have that fear over your head, you have the teachers' college, you have the ministry, you have the trustees and the board. Well, not so much the trustees, they're a bunch of lame ducks and currently under super supervision, they're suspended.
Because that goes into DEI as well. You just recently sent me an email about the cost of the DEI team at the TBDSP Thames Valley District School Board, and over $600,000, I think you quoted. And the board of trustees, the school board itself is now, as of April of last year, ‘25, suspended under supervision by the ministry. In other words, there technically is no trustee on the school board at all. They've been set aside, they're not even getting paid because of financial irregularities, including a $40,000 retreat in Toronto by the mucky mucks in the board.
And yet here we have the $600,000 plus DEI team, and they're suspending the board for $40,000, which was the trigger event. Do you want to speak to that a bit? I mean, we can come back to all of these things. This is such a mess that it is a bit of an octopus, but let's deal with this first. Do you think that supervision of the board was justified given their expenditures on stuff and nonsense like DEI?
Dave Annis:
Absolutely. Absolutely. They deserved it.
Now, the board is in debt some crazy million amount, millions amount. They're cutting back resources for special education. And so the senior administration went on a trip to the Rogers Center, aka Skydome, and spent money on this while doing the cutbacks to special education.
Robert Vaughan:
So they're taking the money away from the critical purpose of the school, which is to educate children and to provide for their educational needs, especially the special ed students, the autistic students, or students who have other learning disabilities, they're taking that money and they're putting it towards the implementation of the mandated provincial government policy of DEI towards junkets to Toronto, perhaps elsewhere. And there is a mismatch between the trustees' responsibility to protect the education of the students in a fiscally responsible way.
So, yes, kudos to the Doug Ford government and the Minister of Education for putting them under supervision, taking them out of the picture. And they're not the only board, by the way. I think there's like six or seven other boards that are under supervision in Ontario at this moment, which speaks a lot to the quality of the trustees that people are hiring or voting for these days.
So this is egregious. This is the simplest thing in the world. I was a trustee for like six years, and a budget would come towards me. And you would read it, you couldn't read the whole thing every word, because it was quite massive. You're talking a billion-dollar budget at the time, it's probably more than that now. But I never voted for a budget. I always voted against every single budget because I could always find waste, including, for example, and I don't want to take up your time, but this is an example of what you're talking about. At one budget, they wanted a $100,000 to renovate the chairperson's office, which, if you've ever been there, is just an office with a secretary in an ante-room.
$100,000 at that time, they would probably be in the late 90s. You could buy a house for $100,000, a small house, but a house. And they want to so would I support that budget? No. I'm not going to support that budget.
Windows were broken at Masonville School. Would I support the budget spending money elsewhere until those windows were fixed? No. And yet every single trustee would vote for such budgets. Except for me. But I'm a weird duck.
So that's just a bit of a background, and to let you know that this is not just today. This has been going on forever.
Dave Annis:
Yeah. And so, and Robert, so to be fair to these trustees, they see special education budget with X amount of dollars, and it might even be subdivided into certain sections. But it doesn't mean anything to them because they don't know what's going on. And they can't.
And that's the problem with the system we have. This is the problem of centralization. This is the problem of thinking that trustees, or frankly, a superintendent of special education actually knows enough to make a decision to run this stuff. How can they possibly know this? No human could. And this is why the centralization system for education does not work.
And so I'm going to say something that's going to be surprising to most people, that someone who worked in the public board for 30 years. And it's something that I would never have said as a teacher until near the 20th year when I started opening my eyes, economically. And is that I believe that the vast majority of education should be privatized. Because the waste is stunning. And through no help of there, no fault of their own, these people can't do it. These trustees are not going to be able to do it.
Robert Vaughan:
Let's get into the gender identity thing, because you told me on the phone there a couple days ago something horrific. We've heard it in other jurisdictions, of course, typically in the United States, United Kingdom, where if a student has gender dysphoria, the latest fad, if you ask me, and they want to identify as something that they are not, defying reason and logic. You're not allowed to tell the parent as a teacher. You're to use that person's preferred third person pronoun, and you're not allowed to tell the parent in a parent teacher's meeting or even over a phone call that this is going on, even though you're acting in loco parentis in the place of the parent, this should be a common channel of communication between you and the parent, but you're forbidden. Talk to me about that.
Dave Annis:
That is correct.
So when a child decides to question their sexual identity, every single employee in the Thames Valley District School Board must affirm whatever it is that student is now saying. They must affirm. Whether it's the teacher, secretary, custodian, vice principal, principal, social worker, psychologist, every single one. Okay.
Now, the board has a policy that forbids the staff from speaking to those parents because and it comes under the umbrella of safety, because there is the fear by these people who wrote this policy, that the parents of these children will somehow strike out in some fashion against these kids. The unspoken issue here is that I believe that they're really worried that their parents would say, No, you're not a girl, you're a boy, or no, you're not a boy, you're a girl, and you're perfect the way you are.
And yes, we do have students who suffer from gender dysphoria, it's a real thing. But all the scientific literature from the Cass report that came out from the UK, it shows that roughly 90% of these students, if you leave them alone, they grow out of it.
So, what happens or what can happen if a student questions their identity? So a teacher might say, Are you sure you're a boy? Are you sure you're a girl? And then the kid might question it, and then they might think, no, I'm the different one, the opposite one. And then that triggers a response. And so all the staff that teach that student would be told. All the administrators would be told.
And so we now, if they're old enough and they decide, do you know what? I want to, I'm biologically female, but I want to use male pronouns. The teacher must use the pronouns that the student wants. Typically it's they them, but sometimes it's the opposite sex, he, and it's in the report card.
So what the board will do, because they're saying that they're worried about the child's safety, and they probably are, is that they will come up and have come up with systems that hide the change of pronoun. So they would come up with two sets of report cards. One would go home to the parent with the biological pronouns, and there would be a separate one. Yes, because you have to keep the child safe.
Robert Vaughan:
I wonder if, under freedom of information, a parent could ask for that second report card if they even know about it. But I did not know that. This is amazing. Double reporting. It’s like they're getting two books.
Dave Annis:
Yeah, yeah, cooking the books.
Clip (Nick Freitas):
The biggest thing that I want parents to understand about homeschooling is that they look at it with a great deal of concern that they're never going to be able to replicate the public school model at home. And the answer to that is correct. You don't want to. The public school model is not designed for your children. The public school model is designed for mass production of education.
But one of the things that was so wonderful about it was not just the time that we got back with our kids and the wonderful relationship I have with all of my children. It was the fact that when they had problem with the subject matter, I didn't sit there and fill out requests for curriculum changes or different tutors. We changed the curriculum. We got them a tutor. I didn't have to go to a school board meeting. I changed it.
Obviously, all of our kids went through basic reading because you got to be literate no matter what you do. All of them went through basic mathematics. Because you gotta understand mathematics no matter what you do. They got into high school.
Okay, what do you want to do with your life? Because the first thing that we would tell our kids is you got to feed yourself. Dreams are great, they just don't feed you. So you either got to pick a dream that allows you to feed yourself, or you got to pick a job that allows you to pursue your dreams.
Clip (Dry Bar Comedy, Kellen Erskine):
So what did you guys do for Valentine's Day?
Sushi?
All right, that's cool. Woohoo, food poisoning. What else?
Studied.
What's that? You studied? That’s like the saddest thing you could say.
Bob Metz:
You are listening to Just Right, broadcasting around the world and online.
And here again is Robert Vaughan with our guest Dave Annis about an education system that seems to be more concerned with a woke agenda than it does with teaching or disseminating valid knowledge.
Dave Annis:
I'll give you another example. So the OPC, so that stands for the Ontario Principals Council. I had a discussion with one person who works there, down in Toronto, and there's a push for more female school administrators.
Okay. And at one point, it was mostly male. It's not now, it's now the majority is female. And I said to the guy, but what's the goal here? Well, we should have 50% female because 50% of the population is female.
And I said to him, Well, I understand that, but do 50% of females want the position. I said, because that's what you should need to be going for. Yes, you should educate females about the pros and cons of this position and say, you know, we'd love to see more females in it. Maybe it's something that will be right for you at some point in your life. But should also be doing it for males. Can't just focus on one, but that's all there is. It's all female based right now. There isn't any push for boys in elementary schools.
Robert Vaughan:
Yeah. I mentioned this to you earlier on in our conversation that back in ‘97 as a trustee, I broke the confidentiality of an in-camera meeting when they said that their intention was to hire all female vice principals. I don't know how you got through that, but hiring all female vice principals.
And of course, I asked them to clarify. I said, can you just say that again? I want to make sure that I get this right. That no male can advance beyond teacher. They would just have to stay there, and only females will get into the vice principal pool. From which, of course, principals are chosen, so then eventually all principals will be female, from which, of course, superintendents are chosen from the principal pool, so eventually all superintendents will be female. In other words, every single person of responsibility and authority in the school system would be female.
And they doubled down. Yes, was the answer. That is correct. That would be our policy. This was an administrator talking, not the trustees, who, by the way, just ate it up. They don't care. They're in that philosophy.
So I broke confidentiality. I could not sit idly by and let the male teachers of London know that they stand zero chance, as you say, zero chance of ever becoming into a position of authority based on the divisive politics of the board.
And of course, I got written up. I was censured publicly by the school board for doing that. I love that. That's great. I wear it as a badge of honor. And I've got a press clipping that would describe it. So maybe I'll post that somewhere someday.
Dave Annis:
So those of you who are teachers out there, I know that those amazing teachers, those amazing school admin out there, you would actually do better in the private sector, running your own school or being at a private school than you are right now. It's a good job, but it's a hard job, and I recognize that. It can be brutal. But in the private, there's the responsibility of the teacher and accountability for the teacher, but there's also the responsibility and accountability for the student. And that's what's lacking right now. There is very little.
Every student passes, every student walks across the stage in grade eight, no matter what they've done, how little, how much.
Robert Vaughan:
I've asked the director of education once that very question. How many students in the Thames Valley District School Board, or it could have been the London board, which was preceding that, graduated this year, and he said, every single one. We didn't fail any. Zero failures. And I going.
Dave Annis:
Yes. Doing a great job.
Robert Vaughan:
I said, what then is the value of a diploma? What then is the value of a diploma when the biggest retard, stupidest student can get a diploma, and the brilliant genius in the classroom, the valedictorian can get a diploma. It means nothing. It means nothing.
And of course, that well, it's child-centered learning, you know. The education follows the child, and we do the best for each individual child.
So an objective measure of a diploma is that it is meaningless, it is simply a measure of the fact that you just spent 12 years of your life in a public institution, much like prison, same thing.
This is a huge problem, I think, in that what the trustees and the teachers and the principals and the superintendents are doing is protecting a system. I came out as well when I was a trustee and said we should just abolish the board of ed. We should just abolish the Ministry of Education, home school, charter schools, private schools. That's the way of the future. That's the way it can solve this problem because this is a system that is, yeah, we're in agreement. This is a system that is destroying not only a people's lives as far as education goes children and young adults, but also it is a huge waste of money.
We had a meeting once in a cafeteria, it was a private meeting with all the trustees, because the image that the board was getting was negative, mostly due to me. And they wanted to have a talk about it, and they couldn't exclude me, obviously. And so they asked me point blank, why are you a trustee? And I said, I want the best education at the lowest cost. That's the role of a trustee. Best education, lowest cost.
Why are you a trustee? I asked them back, and to a person, and they all responded to a person. It was to protect the public education system. In those words, to protect the public education system. They didn't like seeing students change their tax to go to the Catholic board. They would do everything to prevent that.
They didn't want to see parents homeschool. An idea, by the way, that people should understand in the province of Ontario, you're very unique in many respects in that a parent does not have to send their child to school. Check it out. You do not have to send your child to school.
Dave Annis:
Yeah. Well, it's interesting because with what's available on the internet for education now, and with AI. You can become educated for next to nothing.
There's something called the Khan Academy, K-H-A-N. So the reason I'm talking about this is some people think, well, I'd love the homeschool, but I don't have the skills to do it. You don't need the skills. You can use AI and it will tell you what to do. And it'll chump boom boom boom boom and tell you all the steps, the order, all that sort of thing. It'll tell you the best resources, something like Khan Academy, which is a math-based. It's amazing. You know, the things you learn on YouTube are Rumble. Amazing.
Clip (Marina Karlova, August 27 2025):
When I was a kid, I hated school with a passion that adults found concerning. They'd say things like these are the best years of your life, or you'll miss it when you're older. Spoiler alert. I don't miss it at all. I think what they really meant was it only gets worse from here.
And do you know what? I wasn't wrong to hate it. School wasn't education, it was domestication. A decade long training program in obedience.
Looking back now, I can see exactly what they were doing. And it's way more f’ed up than just boring math classes. School is literally training in slavery, and I mean literally. You're being wired at the deepest level to accept that autonomy is bad, obedience is good, and your desires don't matter. And it works.
Interesting how school rewires your understanding of happiness. Remember how you felt on the last day before summer break? That explosion of joy, that feeling like you could finally breathe again. That wasn't happiness. That was relief from captivity.
Real happiness isn't the absence of something awful. But school teaches you that's exactly what it is. Happiness is when the bell rings. Happiness is Saturday afternoon. Happiness is summer vacation, three months in my country, which sounds generous until you realize it's the minimum time needed to partially recover from nine months of institutionalization.
They tell you school is about education, but let's look at what you actually learn. Sit still for hours. Speak only when permitted. Your thoughts, your questions, your ideas, they're interruptions unless they fit into the approved discussion window. Write essays about books you don't care about. Solve math problems that have no connection to anything real. Memorize dates of battles in wars that mean nothing to you. And never ever ask why are we doing this?
You learn to compete against your peers for approval. Grades don't measure intelligence, creativity, wisdom, kindness, innovation or any actually valuable human quality. They measure compliance. How well did you follow instructions? How accurately did you repeat what you were told? How thoroughly did you suppress your own thoughts to regurgitate the approved answer?
The skills that matter in actual life, critical thinking, creativity, emotional intelligence, problem solving, aren't just measured by grades. They're actively punished if they lead you to question the assignment.
At the age of five children can play for hours, turning a cardboard box into a spaceship and a stick into a magic wand. They ask why about everything. They are natural scientists, artists, philosophers. Then school happens. There's only one right answer. Stay inside the lines. Don't ask questions we're not covering. We don't have time for that. That won't be on a test. Stop daydreaming. Pay attention, don't draw during math class.
By high school, most kids have learned the lesson. Creativity is punished, conformity is rewarded. Your weird ideas, your different perspective, your unique way of seeing the world, these are problems to be corrected, not gifts to be nurtured.
They take naturally curious creative beings and turn them into anxious approval seeking robots. Then they wonder why people can't think outside the box. Maybe because you spent a decade punishing anyone who acknowledged the box was there.
Let's do some math. The kind they don't teach in school. Ten or 11 years, depending on your country, 180 to 200 days per year, six to eight hours per day, that's roughly 15,000 hours. Add homework. Two hours per night minimum. Another four to five thousand hours. That makes almost 20,000 hours of your childhood. 20,000 hours where you couldn't choose what to learn, when to learn, how to learn, or whether to learn. 20,000 hours where your natural interests were irrelevant. 20,000 hours being told your instincts were wrong, your energy was excessive, your questions were inappropriate.
And what do you get for this massive time investment? The ability to factor polynomials, knowledge of the Kreb cycle, the capital of Mongolia, the ability to recite poetry, you never chose to read and solve equations you've never used since. Most adults can't remember 90% of what they learned in school. Because they didn't actually learn it. They temporarily memorized it for a test, then deleted it to make room for the next round of meaningless information.
The saddest part isn't the time wasted or the creativity killed, or even the mental health crisis. It's that most people never recover. They leave school thinking they're not math people or not creative or not smart because school couldn't recognize their particular intelligence. They never unlearned the lesson that happiness comes from the absence of obligation rather than the presence of purpose. They pass it on to their kids. You have to go to school. These are the best years of your life. I survived it, you will too.
Dave Annis:
So one of the big fallacies of education is that for teachers, they're required to meet the individual needs of every single student in their class. Well, it's impossible. It is literally impossible. Yeah, it's literally impossible. And so the reason I'm bringing this up for those of you are homeschooling is that right now they have programs that for reading and for math, where it starts answering or asking questions, the child answers it, and it figures out the child's level. And then it gives them the next level of what they should attain. And so now they truly are getting individualized education. And they're doing it at a fraction of the time. And it's going at the speed that they need. So those students that are super intelligent and keen, they're whipping through. What we call enriched or gifted now. They can whip through stuff.
The system's not working. It's not working. It's a collectivist system. It needs to be privatized. The amazing teachers, the amazing school administrators will do better than they currently are financially right now. With less stress. Because, like I said to you, there's no responsibility for the parent and for the student.
Robert Vaughan:
I got involved in education as a trustee because of my own children getting into the system. I sent them to Montessori first so that they could learn how to read and write before I put them into the public school system. But it was because there was an OECD report of 17% of all Ontario high school graduates were illiterate. And I'm going, what's going on here? Why should I put my kids in such a system? So I investigated, I read a book called Why Johnny Can't Read by Rudolph Flesch. And investigated the pedagogical practices of Kenneth and Yeta Goodman in Arizona, how they developed things like whole language, look-say versus phonics.
Dave Annis:
And balanced literacy. Balanced literacy.
Robert Vaughan:
Yeah. Well, it's gone by a host of different names over the years. By the way, for many hundreds of years. People have tried to get away from the phonetic deconstruction of language. And to decipher the code. And that's all it is. 26 letters, I think it's 47 sounds. Boom. Put them together, you got a 97.4% of all little English languages phonetic. The rest can be learned. Like the word the th sound is not a phonetic sound, it's a something you have to learn. And that's how I got into it.
So I want to ask you your students, how were they in reading and writing and link language comprehension literature, things like that? Did you find it okay? Or have they started introducing phonics into the system?
Dave Annis:
Yeah, so when I was teaching, I was teaching balanced literacy. And it's all those things that you just talked about. And so I would say that I had students who excelled despite it. I had students who learned to read despite it.
There's an awesome podcast called Sold a Story, and it's all about the science of reading, how they knew that how kids read and it's phonetic and they should be using phonics, and how the system it's based in the states, but it applies to every country that followed the states which Canada did, and how the reading scores of these students dropped down tremendously.
But you have a certain percentage of students that it they weren't connecting the dots on their own that they needed that explicit instruction, and so Ontario noticed that these numbers of illiterate children graduating or not graduating as illiterates, it did an inquiry, that the science of reading inquiry, and found that the majority of school boards, mine being one of them, were not using science to teach, and so they forced those boards, Thames Valley included, to return back to it, and to Thames Valley's credit, they did a great job in retraining the teachers, the staff in doing that. So kudos to Thames Valley for that.
Robert Vaughan:
Excellent.
I've got so many clippings that I could go back, and I've got to publish these someday, maybe under the host section of Just Right media's page. But the Freedom Party of Ontario, of which Bob Metz was the founder, put out a production called Just Say Know to Whole Language, K-N-O-W, where we talked about the history of language and reading and instruction. And I remember we were invited, both Bob and I to the home of a teacher in London who took exception, who was a member of the Freedom Party, but took exception to this particular policy of ours, education policy.
And it took about an hour and it got a little heated at the end there. But what this teacher, a woman, meant by the word reading was different from what we were talking about when we said to read. If I put up D-O-G to read, it means dog. To understand what a dog is is something it's comprehension, and she was conflating reading with comprehension, and that was a big issue. And when she understood then finally that no, no, when we're talking about reading, we're talking about deciphering the code.
My child at six, I could give them a chemistry textbook from university, they could read it. Would they understand it? No, I probably didn't understand it. But the point is they could read it, then they can go and say, what does this word mean? And then pronounce the word. That's phonics. That's reading, it's not comprehension. That comes over many years of experience.
So there's a stumbling block. This teacher didn't know what the word reading meant.
Dave Annis:
Yeah. And to get back to your question about how the students are doing, in Ontario, we have the EQAO. So it's a test of the grade three and six reading, writing, and math, and then grade nine math, and grade 10 literacy. And the scores are going up. The goal is to get a level three or higher, because level three means you're meeting the expectations. Okay, well, the numbers were going up, but then I would get these grade four and grade seven staff coming to me, and they're saying it said in their EQA score that Johnny got a level three in reading, but he can't read.
So the EQAO scores are not a good measuring stick for reading. It's just coming back, Robert, to what you said, that when everyone passes and everyone gets a diploma, because that's the goal, then they become meaningless. You know, it's the scarce things that are worth that are worth something. When everyone's got a degree, a degree is no longer worth anything.
Robert Vaughan:
They're setting them up for failure, a goal that they think is best for the child, contrary, maybe to what the child would think. And then when the child follows the leader, because this is the wont of children is to please the adults, they become frustrated, they become angry.
Dave Annis:
Yeah.
Robert Vaughan:
That they're not following their goal. Thank you very much. I wanted to become a fisherman. I wanted to be a welder. I wanted to be in construction like my dad. No, no, no, no. Matriculate. Go to university, be a doctor. You know.
Dave Annis:
And the irony of all ironies now is that these university jobs are the ones at risk from AI. You know, so what are you gonna do now, school board? Right? Oh, now I'm gonna push trades again? Well, he better. You better.
I had a plumber come in to fix my sink about a month ago. And I said, So is it busy out there? He says, Yeah, I'm turning down jobs. Yep. He says, I could be working 24-7, and I would.
Robert Vaughan:
It’s the same in this province, it's the same here.
Dave Annis:
Yeah. I said, So would you say that as a plumber that you're making, you know, 75, 80,000? I said, in general, plumbers in general. He says, Oh, easily. Easily. He says, it all depends on how much you work.
And also if you own your own business, you're making more. He says, and it's not just plumbing, it's electricians, it's carpenters, it's welders. And I said, So when you went to school, I said, was it here in Ontario? He said, Yeah. I said, was there a push for trades? He says, No. He was dyslexic, he had trouble reading, and so he knew he was going into trades.
Robert Vaughan:
That's not necessary. That just because a person may not have that particular desire to get into academe oh, you gotta matriculate, you gotta go to university. That's better for you.
Dave Annis:
Yeah, it's and it's funny because university that that's the home of no accountability of ideas, right? You know, they throw out ideas and they don't suffer the consequences. Again, it’s like I believe elementary and secondary should be privatized, so should universities. You know, then you get accountability, then because it's your money. Your money's on the line.
Robert Vaughan:
Now, down in the states, every universities are government. Here, for example, if you go on to the University of Western Ontario, you'll see a sign at the gates before you enter is that this is private property. This is a private institution, it receives government largesse, government funding, but technically it's private. So privatization in this respect may not be the answer. I think to be more specific, it is making sure that government get out of the education business, the education service, because that is what it should be.
If we were to rate, and this could be different for every person and every parent, if you were to rate and give it a score of based on hours, for example, of the following influences: the parents, your teachers in the schools, your religious figures, your friends, entertainment, those five areas. Rate them based on hours in a day over the say up to the age of 17, which is when you graduate from grade 12, hopefully, that a child is spent in those areas of influence. Schooling is right up there every day for five days a week until the summer, you're in front of a teacher for years. Compare that to Hollywood, television, Netflix, radio, music, hours every single day, seven days a week for many, many children, almost all of them.
Now then compare that to how many hours you spend with your parents, or your friends, your friends, I would say that more people spend time with their friends than they do with their parents as they get older and older. After that, man, the Marxists to get political have taken the education system, understanding that this is perhaps for many people the primary source of influence, and have usurped its original purpose of education, and are using it as a tool to indoctrinate them into an ideology that many of their parents would not approve of. And is antithetical to reason. Well, that's my rant. You tell me, do you I agree?
Dave Annis:
I agree.
Robert Vaughan:
Oh, okay, good.
Dave Annis:
I agree completely. And so what's the solution? The solution is to take your kid out. And I understand that for many people it's not a possibility because they need it acts as child care while they're at work. Fair enough. Absolutely.
Robert Vaughan:
Remember. Remember, they don't have to send the kids. You don't even have to teach your child. You don't even have the home school.
Dave Annis:
Exactly. So although I recommend teaching them or getting someone to teach them,
Robert Vaughan:
Of course.
Dave Annis:
So find those other disaffected parents and make an education commune. You know, there's so many homeschool resources on the internet. So many. Find those, and there are lots of teachers who are disaffected that do not like this system whatsoever, but they're forced in it because there's there is no other choice. But the biggest vote you have is with your money. And when you send your child to school, the school board gets a per pupil grant of X amount of dollars. And when you pull your child out, that is when the school board will finally listen to you as a parent. It is the only time they'll listen to you. Guaranteed.
And so, like to end, I would just like to say, despite the many, many awesome and competent school administrators and teachers in the public system. You have to realize that your children are your responsibility, their safety is your responsibility, their education is your responsibility. But yes, parents take them out. I would not send my own kids into the system if they're in kindergarten right now. I would probably homeschool, but if that's not an option, private school if you can afford it, Catholic school or some other religious school, and have the money flow to them. Because money speaks louder than any word, and it is the best way you can vote.
Robert Vaughan:
That's a great place to end it, Dave. I thank you very much. Appreciate it.
Dave Annis:
Thank you.
Bob Metz:
And before signing off for today, I just can't help wondering if that plumber that Dave Annis cited who said he was suffering from dyslexia wasn't really suffering from the symptoms of being taught to read using whole language. Because I recall distinctly back in the days when Freedom Party was pushing for phonics, that reading expert Sheila Morrison specifically mentioned dyslexia as among the false symptoms associated with this teaching disorder.
But most ominous and deeply concerning for me was Robert's report that every other trustee on the board, when he was a member and explaining why they ran as trustees to a person, said to protect the public education system. Or in other words, you know what they're actually saying? We're all communists and socialists, and your kids belong to us.
Just one more reason why I'm relieved that my daughter Danielle has been homeschooling my grandkids. So, if nothing else, today's conversation has certainly provided an education about education, and in the spirit of those who have recommended pursuing an education online, one small way you can do that is, as always, to join us again next week when we will continue our journey in the right direction. And until then, be right, stay right, do right, act right, think right, and be right back here. We'll see you then.
Clip (Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In):
Last night I was in my basement just rummaging around in some old trunks.
Didn't you feel a little ridiculous dressed like that?
Oh, come on.
Suppose if somebody had dropped in unexpectedly.
You're being silly.
I'm silly. You're the one in the baggy shorts.
I was looking for some mementos of my youth, examining my memorabilia, and I found an old high school yearbook.
I didn't even know you went to an old high school.
Sure brought back a lot of memories. Hey, how'd you do in school?
Fantastic!
I mean, what kind of grades did you get?
Grades? We got grades?
Don't you remember how well you did in class?
No, but there's a few recesses I'll never forget.
Nice.